Book Club: Identity

1 John 3:1 (NIV)

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

The second book I am drawing on for inspiration this week is: A Dream of You by Jo Saxton. Jo is a wonderful author and speaker whom I first had the privilege of hearing at New Wine when I was a teenager. She recommended this book after one of her talks and I bought it immediately...only to pick it up and read it around five years later. It turns out that the five-year gap was a blessing as this book is full of knowledge and wisdom on how we can reclaim our identity in Christ : how to live out that identity every day, something that, as a recent graduate in my early 20s, I really (I mean really) needed some help this year.  

At the beginning of the book, Jo asks the reader, ‘Who were you before anyone told you who you were supposed to be?’ After reading this a few times I found myself exclaiming: ‘I don’t know the answer, Jo!’ It really floored me.

We live in a world where we are labelled and laden with expectations about who we should be from an early age. Our identities quickly become tangled up in our jobs, our giftings or whatever someone else says we should be! It is so easy to forget that our original, God-given identity is that we are children of God, made in his image and loved beyond measure. Jo devotes the rest of her book to exploring what it looks like to walk in that God-given identity and I implore you to read the whole thing, but for today I want us to spend some time reconnecting to our God-given identity and remembering that above all else we are God’s children. 

Prayer — Father God, what great love you have lavished upon us that we are first and foremost called children of God. Help us to put our identity in you again and confidently walk in that truth every day.